Hustle & Heartache

by D. Gamblez

  “Then what happened?” Miracle asked.

  “Well, I didn’t want her to go into hiding again, so I told her that instead of going to the station and giving a statement, she should...we should go over to your place instead and explain everything first. At first she looked at me as if I was crazy, but after I explained to her that you’d do whatever you could to ensure her safety, she agreed.”

  “I’m seeing lights, guys,” Oliver said, indicating the blue and red lights from the squad cars coming down the road. Which, of course, we already knew because the sirens were so loud now, they sounded as if they were being played through Vida’s stereo system.

  “Bring it home, Vida,” I rushed.

  “Yeah, yeah, okay. Um... Yeah, so she agreed, right? To come to you about it, I mean.”

  “Yeah, I got that,” I said impatiently. “Just tell us when and why she shot herself.”

  “Well, she didn’t want to go to your place right then. Said in case she wasn’t going to see me for awhile for some reason, she wanted to spend the night with me and hang out, then come to you in the morning. So I let her spend the night. When I woke up this morning, I found her sitting on the bathroom floor, crying, begging me not to repeat to you what she’d told me. I told her that she’d be okay, and that’s when she ran out and grabbed the gun.”

  “Where’d she get the gun?” I asked.

  Vida hesitated before answering, and that’s how I knew what the answer was going to be before she even said it.

  “It was your gun, wasn’t it?” I asked.

  “Yeah, it was,” she said reluctantly.

  “Fuck!” JJ said, slamming his fist into the wall.

  “Goddamn it, Vida!” Miracle spat.

  “She grabbed my gun and put it under her chin, crying and shit, saying how she didn’t want to end up in jail. I begged her not to do it, Naomi. I told her that I’d protect her, and that as long as she testified in open court against whoever made her do this, she wouldn’t do any jail time. But she was terrified of testifying against these guys. Said that they could get to her anytime they wanted to. Then she shot herself. Blew her own fucking brains out right in front of me, Sarge.”

  Vida shouldn’t have promised her that she wouldn’t have done any jail time, but now was definitely not the time for that lecture.”“

  “Were you two sleeping together?” I asked bluntly.

  “W—What? Why do you ask that?” She was avoiding the question.

  “You said ‘we’ took a shower and then sat down on the couch afterwards. I’m assuming the shower included the both of you, so I’ll ask again. Were you two sleeping together?”

  “No, we weren’t... Why do keep asking me that, Sarge?”

  “I’m just repeating what you said to us,” I said simply.

  “Hey,” Miracle said lowly, placing a gentle hand on Vida’s cheek. “You know I’m your ride or die, right, partner? It’s okay, you can tell me. Were you two in love? Did you love her, Vida?”

  Vida nodded, confirming my suspicions. “It only started last year, and it wasn’t anything serious. Well, not at first. Things were really starting to get in the ‘committed relationship’ phase these past few months. Anyway, when she didn’t show up for work, and after you went by her apartment and found it empty, I thought Hensley had done something horrible to her. I mean, she knew she could trust me enough to come to me about anything, so I was wondering why she didn’t? Then she showed up here this morning and... Well, you know the rest.”

  “This morning? I thought you said she came over last night?” I asked.

  Something’s not right about this story. But this is Vida; she wouldn’t hide anything from me. Would she?

  “Did I say that?” she asked with furrowed brow as a fresh set of tears rolled down her face.

  “Yes, you did,” I snapped. “In fact, you said she and you drank and hung out all night, if I’m not mistaking. How can you forget all that?”

  “I’m sorry, Sarge. I’m just so...so messed up right now. I just can’t believe she shot herself.”

  I took a moment to survey the gruesome scene, my detective mind trying to piece together the jigsaw of how all of this could have happened under my command. I did not like the finished puzzle.

  Wait, wait, wait. If the two of them went out for drinks, how the hell did no one notice or recognize Maxine as the missing woman from the news? And if Vida went out for drinks, well, there’s only one place she goes, and that place is usually crawling with off-duty cops. And still no one noticed Maxine? Yeah, something’s not right about this story.

  You said you went out for drinks?” I asked suspiciously.

  Vida hesitated a moment before answering. “Yeah, but I didn’t go to the Liquor’s Lounge like I usually do because somebody would’ve recognized her, you know? No, we just bought a bottle of vodka and drank it in the car.”

  “A bottle of vodka from where?”

  “Huh?”

  “Where’d you get the vodka?”

  “From the liquor store.”

  “The Liquor’s Lounge?”

  “Yeah. Wait...are you trying to trick me into telling you the truth because you still think I’m lying or something?”

  “Do I think you’re lying? Are you kidding me right now? Vida, look at me. Look at me! You damn right I think you’re lying about, at least about some of the shit you’ve told us or haven’t told us so far. Now what the hell are you not telling us?”

  “What, you think I’m hiding something from you guys? Naomi, I told you everything. Everything! Why are you coming down on me like this? Why are you making me out to be a suspect when I just told you clearly what happened? She shot her fucking self!”

  “I don’t know, Vida. Something’s just not right to me about all this. My instincts say there’s more to this story, but for some reason, you don’t want us to know what that is.”

  “Ever thought your instincts may be wrong sometimes?” Miracle said, defending her friend. “I mean, she said she told us everything, so why do you keep pressing her?”

  “I’m sorry, Sergeant Hoskins, I hadn’t realized this had somehow become your unit,” I said. Wow... I sounded just like Hensley in that moment. Why doesn’t that bother me? I mean, I fucking hate the guy, so me sounding like him just now should definitely bother me. But it doesn’t. Strange...

  Miracle’s brow furrowed at the words. “Come on, Sarge, you know I didn’t mean”—”

  “Then shut the fuck up and let me ask the questions!” I barked.

  “Wow,” was all Miracle said in response as she lowered her head and stepped aside.

  “They’re here,” Oliver said. “And you’re not gonna believe who’s with them.”

  Hensley, I suspected.

  “Hensley,” he confirmed.“Listen, Vida,” I said cautiously but quickly as I knew time was not on our side at the moment. “You need to tell me everything that went down here. Everything, Vida. No matter how unimportant it may seem. This is a pretty fucked up situation. For all of us. It’s pretty fucked up, Vida.”

  “I know, Sarge. I know,” she cried.

  “If there’s something you’re not telling us... If we need to cover for you for some reason... Vida, I need to know everything. You hear me? Everything! From the exact time Maxine showed up until the moment she...” I did not want to finish that last statement because the expression on Vida’s face portrayed a woman on the verge of a psychotic break if she had to relive how her girlfriend had died one more time.

  “I...” she started to say but was interrupted by the annoying ringing of my phone. I would’ve ignored it, but it wasn’t the usual ring tone. It was the emergency one.

  After unclipping it from my belt, when I saw Winona’s number followed by the word URGENT CALL!!! on the small, rectangular display screen, my heart rate suddenly increased.

  I went to answer it, but then I remembered the battery was nearly dead, so instead I grabbed Vida’s cordless phone from the nightstand and proceeded
to dial my home number. My hands were shaking so badly that I had to dial the number twice before getting it right. “Winona? What’s the matter? What’s wrong? Are you and M’kayla all right?” I asked as soon as she answered the phone.

  “S-She’s not here,” Winona sobbed through the tiny speaker. “I’ve looked everywhere, Naomi, but I can’t seem to find her.”

  “Can’t find who?”

  “M’kayla.”

  “What...what the fuck are you talking about, Winona? Where’s M’kayla? Where’s my daughter?” I asked. I could feel my body beginning to weaken at what I feared was about to come.

  “I was only napping for a few minutes, but”—”

  “Just tell me!” I snapped. “Where’s my daughter?”

  “I’m so sorry, Naomi. The back door was open and... She’s gone, Naomi. She’s just...gone.” I heard Winona crying. I could still hear her voice faintly as the phone slid out of my hand and fell to the floor. “M’kayla’s gone.”

  “You all right, Sarge? Sarge!” I was faintly aware of my team yelling behind me as I ran out of the bedroom...down the stairs...and out of the house. I was so distraught that I could not remember where I was, so I just started running down the middle of the street in search of my 6-year-old daughter M’kayla.

  By the time I realized I was running instead of driving, I was on my knees in the middle of the street, horns blaring loudly as cars sped by, doing their best to avoid hitting me. I glanced around and noticed that I was blocks away from Vida’s house and miles from mine. And for the first time in my life, I called out to God, praying for his help.

  I looked up to the sky, the sudden burst of rain mixing with my tears, and screamed as loud as I could, hoping that He’d hear me.

  “Please, God! Please, God, don’t do this to me! Not M’kayla. Not my baby girl. Not my life. Please...”

  * * *

  If you enjoyed Pretty Girls Love Street Kings: Hustle & Heartache, turn to the next page for a sneak peak of Part 2!

  Joy

  I knew just how to get Cornell to do exactly what I wanted him to do. You suck a man’s dick right the first time, and he’d do whatever you wanted him to just to make sure you did it again. All these bitches out here claiming that pussy runs the world is just plain stupid, you ask me. If you knew how to use your tongue and lips, you didn’t need to rely on pussy. Even though I was good at doing it all, on most occasions, I only had to do very little because I knew what I was doing.

  “G-Goddamn, Joy,” Cornell panted, every muscle in his 6’2”, 200-pound body tightening as I bobbed up and down on his twelve-inch anaconda, my head twisting and turning as I engulfed the entire thing down my throat.

  Thank God I don’t have a gag reflex, or I’d be choking like a motherfucker right now.

  “Mmm...” I moaned greedily. But I really hated giving Cornell blowjobs. His light-skinned ass always smelled like weed and musty-ass nuts, but I knew I had to do what I had to do to get what I wanted.

  He gripped the back of my head and started pounding his pole deep down my throat, and when I knew he was about to come, I pulled away and opened my mouth wide like I was expecting water from a fountain after a week of dehydration. His nut sprayed everywhere, especially on my tits. And I cleaned every bit of it up with my tongue.

  “Mmm, mmm, mmm, baby,” I purred, buttoning my bra to cover my huge, DD-cup sized breasts. I had let him slide his dick between them as part of the deal that he would listen to my plan afterwards.

  “So...” Cornell said as he lit a blunt, puffed it twice, then passed it to me. “You say this nigga, Dre−he stacked up real nice, huh?”

  I nodded. “Keeps the shit hidden in the back of a nail salon owned by this Vietnamese bitch,” I said disgustedly. I hated foreign bitches, but I really hated Jinx’s fake ass.

  “How much we talkin’, shawty?” Cornell asked as he played with my big round ass, alternating between smacking it and squeezing it.

  “About $25,000, I think,” I said with a smile. “And I know the perfect time to hit their asses too, especially since I’m the only one besides the owner with a key. She trusts me more than she trusts the other bitches that work there, so she gave me an extra set of keys so I can open up the shop whenever she’s running late and close up whenever she leaves early, which is almost every other day, so... Plus, she and Dre doesn’t even know that I know about the money and shit, me being the dumb-ass white girl and all.”

  Cornell mulled it over in his mind for a while, then he unzipped his pants again, pulling out his erect penis like he hadn’t just ejaculated all down my throat a minute ago. “I’m down with whatever you tryin’ to do, shawty, but a nigga need some of that pussy motivation as an incentive, feel me?”

  “Ooh, hell yeah, I feel you, baby,” I purred, feigning interest and pulling my Apple Bottom jeans all the way down to my ankles, my pink, meaty pussy-lips swallowing my pink thong like a whale using a piece of dental floss. “Let Kitty slide up and down daddy’s stripper pole, huh.”

  I turned around, pulled my thong out and to the side, spit in my hand and used it to lube the entrance of my honey hole, then sat in Cornell’s lap as he leaned back in the brown leather chair.

  I raised up just enough to position Cornell’s massive pole, lining it up with my meaty entrance before slipping it in and sliding down on it, taking all twelve inches of his monster cock deep into my walls. I lifted my legs up and slid my jeans the rest of the way off and tossed them aside. Then I put my legs behind my head, grabbed a firm hold on the armrests of the chair, then started bouncing up and down on his big, light-skinned dick, screaming like a virgin on prom night. But I was faking most of it. My dildos that I had in high school were bigger than this nigga’s dick.

  Damn, this nigga fuck like a bunny rabbit. But I don’t really give no fucks. After we hit this lick, I’m gonna be one paid bitch, then I’m gonna put all the blame on this lame-ass nigga. Can’t trust any motherfucker to do right by you, so you gotta do wrong by them before they decide to do the same to you. Plus, I don’t trust none of these thirsty-ass, fake-ass G.I. niggas anyways. I would’ve fucked with Dre, but he chose that bitch Jinx over me. Then he went and got with that ugly-ass bitch Audi. So it is what it is. Fuck ‘em all!

  It’s all about the money with me, anyways. You can get a blowjob from a bitch, you can get some pussy from a bitch, but a nigga can’t ever, and I do mean ever touch a bitch’s money. M.O.B—Money Over Bitches? Fuck that! It’s M.O.D—Money Over Dick for this bitch. Believe that shit.

  Dre

  I stared across the huge marble table at the man known only as Stackz as he stared back at me with a stoic expression on his face. The dark-wood cane with gold handle encrusted with diamonds resting against the gold-inlaid Mahogany chair he was occupying at the moment. When I had called the day before and demanded a sit-down with him, I had not really expected him to get back to me so soon, if it all. But I was not really worried about anything. Actually, to my surprise, I was very calm. But that was mostly due to the fact that I was prepared. Whatever the outcome of this meeting, I was prepared.

  “So you think that just ‘cause you’re Damon’s little brother, I should let you take his place as one of my most trusted business partners, huh?” Stackz said suddenly, his brow furrowing slightly. “Do you have any idea what your brother was doing for me, what he was doing out here in these streets? Do you even know anything about the dope game at all, youngsta?”

  He looked over at the beautiful dark-skinned woman who had frisked me and Raheem before we were allowed inside of the huge mansion. She had taken my .45 and placed it in the small of her back. She was about 5’11”, taller than me, Raheem, and Stackz. Even the heavy-set black guy in shades and leather jacket who had been leaning up against the wall off to the side with his hand tucked beneath his jacket since the moment we entered the study was about a few inches shorter than the woman.

  Raheem’s eyes kept darting over to the guy leaning against the wall, but I was more fo
cused on the woman. With her long black hair pulled back into a braided ponytail and her voluptuous body demanding every man’s attention in the room, it was impossible not to notice her. Even though the full beauty of her was somewhat hidden beneath the skintight black leather pants, black sports bra, and black leather boots she wore, I felt my libido responding to the very thought of what she could teach me in the bedroom. She was the perfect definition of what men had in mind when they referred to a woman of African descent as “Black Goddess.”

  “My name is Zora Nu-Sankoh,” she had said earlier as she led us into Stack’s private study. “If either of you are trying to guess my nationality, I am from Sierra Leone. That is all you need to know about me because that is all I will share with you.”

  “I’m Dre, and-”

  “I don’t care to know your names,” she had cut me off. “I only want you to know who I am so that in the instance that I have to let you meet the Grim Reaper, you can let Lucifer know that it was his favorite daughter who sent him the precious gift of two more souls.”

  At that, Raheem and I had exchanged looks. But before I decided how to respond to her obvious threat, Zora had looked back over her shoulder and flashed us a bright smile, her plump lips retracting to reveal the whitest teeth I had ever seen.

  “Don’t worry, love,” she had said, swishing her big butt seductively as we continued to follow her. “I only bite if you give me cause.” Then she resumed leading us through the large mansion. The sound of the heels of her boots clacking loudly with each step, echoing off the large, oil painting-donned walls.

  “What the hell do we do, fam?”Raheem had whispered when we figured the woman was out of earshot.